Encounter Difficulty

Posted this is the 'XP System' thread, and decided it would be better suited to a new topic:

Another point that is kind of along these lines... I know that level 40
should be a big achievement and a big time investment to achieve.
With that in mind the extremely low xp received for mobs makes sense. However, I've found, in my limited time here, that there are very few
areas that I would qualify as 'epic.' Granted, casters seem to be
slightly favored in Aenea (which I love xD) but there are only 2 places
that pose even a remote challenge to my main, Sevenar: Beholder cave (roll a 1 on
death ray or occasional petrification and subsequent bite marks from
the elder) and the Orc Destroyers/Devastators/whatever-they-are-called
in the City of Tesh. Everything else is struck dead with a wiggle of my
gnomish nose. Is there a chance of some of the encounters/areas being
scaled to a higher difficulty level for the high level toons? I haven't
played up that high with a melee character yet, so I'm not sure how it
compares, but I'm workin on that end of things to balance out this suggestion.

Have any of the other 30+ toons run into this?

Yes, I've run into this with most of my characters.

In my tinkering around on this other server, I"ve noticed something about the main hunting area I've been through that made it a challenge. The spawns had mixed types of enemies. Spell casters and archers mixed in with the melee grunts. And the spell casters used spells rather viciously. The archers too were a real danger compared to the melee grunts.

The challenge came in that all sorts of combat types were thrown at you in one instance. In Aenea, bandits offer something of that. A full high end spawn of bandits will give out a bunch of mages, a bunch of archers, and a bandit chief (the meleer). That can be a nice challenge for a character of suitable level.

Perhaps if other areas were tweaked to have more diverse spawns, there'd be something more of a challenge/threat. Once you get to a decent AC and/or have peirce/acid resistances, fort Morth is a kill fest for you rather than for the orcs.

But, maybe if you threw in a good number of orc shamans who throw out dispells and nasty attack spells, the area would remain more of a challenge.

Have more enemies with knockdown, called shot, dirty fighting and other such combat abilities. Enemies with HIPs and sneak attacks. And not just one single type of enemy in a single area, but a mix of all types in suitable numbers. Not just one bandit chief and his greatsword, but a couple meleeing bandits in equal number to mages and archers. Maybe enemies who have their own bards singing quaking chorus or curse songs mixed in with meleers who do called shots, while archers pepper you with nasty arrows and a couple spell casters in the back throwing out suitable spells to make you either kill them first ASAP, or find some defences vs them ASAP.

Another good reason to mix up types of enemies in a single spawn too is that a single given enemy (who is balanced and leveled by the same rules and standards PCs are) will not be a challenge to one PC, but will be near impossible for another PC of the same level, but different set of abilites or classes.

One could just beef up the enemy to have insane immunities, insane AB, and insane AC... but in the long run it's not fun facing 3 supermen built up Gron style. But, if you're facing one really good meleer, one really good spell caster, and one really good auxiliary character, they offer as a group a challenge to anyone, and you will be able to beat them if you apply your skills and abilities in a smart way.

I totally agree with what Manny said. Another beneficial change would not only be different attack types (melee, archers, spellcasters) but different TYPES of enemies. IE: A human necromancer who has conjured up a variety of undead and also has a troll bodyguard or something like that. If you're facing a lich with an army of undead, you can just memorize U2Ds and Sunbursts to annihilate everything, you don't have to plan ahead at all

Personally I found we have too little with variation on exotic monsters. First, not all mindflayers are psionists, some are also wizards. Second, trolls sometimes exist in loosely knit tribes of 5-10, with one chief and 1 shaman. Second, we should have some monsters have strengths based not only what they are, but also by age, and possibly profession. For instance, trolls could take a level of barbarian so they can use rage ability, making them even harder and scarier. The ankhegs we see on our server are typically adolescent males, meaning weak ankhegs. Female ankhegs are larger and stronger than males, so I wonder why we don't add them? Furthermore there is a lack of creatures that use items specifically for their race excluding orcs. This is very odd. A ogre or giant will use a weapons that gnomes and halflings could never hope to carry due to both size and weight. Likewise they would do more damage than a normal club or mace(giants would likely use maces if cleric or sword/axe depending on class and giant type).

Did anyone notice that in spite of being able to find some things, certain animals are almost nonexistent in Aenea too?!?! There appears to be no spawn points for deer and few for boars. Likewise you should be able to get a leather hide from any small or larger mammal (meaning deer, boar, cattle, wolf, panther). Likewise the boars never drop meat, which is bizarre... deer should drop meat too. Likewise we have all sorts of firebeetles. But no matter the type of firebeetle, none of them drop firebeetle bellies. Not even the normal default NWN ones, which is a bit bizarre. Amethyst could intergrate firebeetle bellies into a alchemy system for making alchemist fire, and likewise bombardier beetle bellies could be used for acid flasks. Finally, stag beetles, just like ankhegs, drop chitin normally, which is used in helms and shields in more barbaric regions of Aber-Toril as well as a completely different world called Orren (Aber-toril has the continent Faerun while Orren has the continent Greyhawk). There are so many minor things that havent been implemented that could be very useful, I know Amethyst used alot of my previous ideas, hopefully he might find any of these usefull. Perhaps I'll send scripts and erfs if he asks.

MannyJabrielle wrote:Another good reason to mix up types of enemies in a single spawn too is that a single given enemy (who is balanced and leveled by the same rules and standards PCs are) will not be a challenge to one PC, but will be near impossible for another PC of the same level, but different set of abilites or classes.

One could just beef up the enemy to have insane immunities, insane AB, and insane AC... but in the long run it's not fun facing 3 supermen built up Gron style. But, if you're facing one really good meleer, one really good spell caster, and one really good auxiliary character, they offer as a group a challenge to anyone, and you will be able to beat them if you apply your skills and abilities in a smart way.

I know exactly what you mean. The skeletal warriors, I think they are called, that started spawning in the Vale's graveyard at like level 3-4 for my druid were pretty much a guaranteed death sentence for another 2 levels or so...

Enterprise2001 wrote:

MannyJabrielle wrote:Another good reason to mix up types of enemies in a single spawn too is that a single given enemy (who is balanced and leveled by the same rules and standards PCs are) will not be a challenge to one PC, but will be near impossible for another PC of the same level, but different set of abilites or classes.

One could just beef up the enemy to have insane immunities, insane AB, and insane AC... but in the long run it's not fun facing 3 supermen built up Gron style. But, if you're facing one really good meleer, one really good spell caster, and one really good auxiliary character, they offer as a group a challenge to anyone, and you will be able to beat them if you apply your skills and abilities in a smart way.

I know exactly what you mean. The skeletal warriors, I think they are called, that started spawning in the Vale's graveyard at like level 3-4 for my druid were pretty much a guaranteed death sentence for another 2 levels or so...

Agreed. When I first made Crid, even though some folks are of the mindset that Aenea *favors* casters, When i got into the Graveyard around level 6 or so, the Skeleton Warriors *destroyed* me repeatedly. A pure melee guy could have dealt with them much better (still would have been tough), but every one of my spells was being resisted. If there was maybe *one* warrior, and a mix of archers and mages it might present a more balanced challenge for other character types.

daveyeisley wrote:Agreed. When I first made Crid, even though some folks are of the mindset that Aenea *favors* casters, When i got into the Graveyard around level 6 or so, the Skeleton Warriors *destroyed* me repeatedly. A pure melee guy could have dealt with them much better (still would have been tough), but every one of my spells was being resisted. If there was maybe *one* warrior, and a mix of archers and mages it might present a more balanced challenge for other character types.

Ohhh... no freaking way Aenea favors spell slingers. The huge mobs of melee only combatants clearly favors pure melee fighters. Druids are roughly 50/50 fighter/divine spell caster. (Think cleric with a little less fighter and curing/buff magic and some offensive divine magic.) I would say the skeleton warriors came at least 2-3 levels before I really had a chance to beat them. It's possible better equipment would of helped, but still, they came before I had a decent chance to kill them, and I tend to lean towards the combat side of the druid too. I can't imagine trying to kill them as a pure caster...

I even played "tour guide" to a sorcerer for the ant quest in the Vale. I didn't get his level, but I think it was near mine, 8, or so at the time. And I don't think he had a real good chance of taking down the groups of giant worker ants without me, but they were easy for me. And the ants are (probably?) the easiest set of monsters on the server. I'm not claiming to be an expert, far from it, but they were the easiest things I've run into near the Vale so far.

So, yeah, I agree too that the spawns need adjusted. Perhaps it could be as simple as slowing the rate at which they scale up? At least in the vicinity of the Vale anyway? I too think mixing in some ranged fighters and casters would certainly help, though just ranged fighters with the skeletons, they already have their casters.

I don't know if their are any, but certainly some hostile druids (You have encroached on my enclave and must die now!), monks, rangers, and the "lesser used" classes would be interesting. I know druids can do some serious damage and be difficult to slay with their combined offensive, defensive, and buffing spells when they reach higher levels...

Well melee characters are always going to be stronger at lower levels due mostly to higher AC and HP. Once you hit about level 11+ I think casters start to far exceed the abilities of any melee class. While leveling, I rarely lost a summon to damage, it was usually to the spell expiring. Summon IX is invincible in some areas. I wandered around the graveyard at level 3-4 I think and then not until 10+ so I missed the phase where skeleton warriors were hard to kill.

So it seems we all agree some tweaking would be benficial... now it's just how to best do it to better balance the server.

sevenar wrote:Well melee characters are always going to be stronger at lower levels due mostly to higher AC and HP. Once you hit about level 11+ I think casters start to far exceed the abilities of any melee class. While leveling, I rarely lost a summon to damage, it was usually to the spell expiring. Summon IX is invincible in some areas. I wandered around the graveyard at level 3-4 I think and then not until 10+ so I missed the phase where skeleton warriors were hard to kill.

So it seems we all agree some tweaking would be beneficial... now it's just how to best do it to better balance the server.

Not sure of the AC items and buffs available to pure casters, but I find that hard to believe.

I was just in the graveyard again with a pretty powerful spell slinger, and he was mobbed and killed even though he could take out a huge pile of them with one spell. It's not too hard to get totally surround in the graveyard. That's... what? 8 melee attackers on you? And possibly even 2-3 deep. Even if you make your concentration checks, that's potentially a huge amount of damage. Along with whatever damage spells the mages are hurling at you... Well, ouch... The same spawn that got him ALMOST got me. If it wasn't for my wand of cure serious wounds that I almost emptied, and the fact that I was on horseback to make a break for it after I broke through, I would of joined him in the Great Hall. I might of joined him yet had he not come back and finished off the last dozen or so skeleton warriors, that surrounded me AGAIN. (Those warriors can hall @$$! )

As for the summons, pretty much the same thing, they are usually mobbed and slain within a few rounds...

While I can't comment on much of Aenea's spawns, I can say with some confidence that the Vale's graveyard scales up a little too fast, especially for being only one transition away from the starting town.

Enterprise2001 wrote:
...

Ohhh... no freaking way Aenea favors spell slingers...

...

I believe that Arcane spellcasters have a significant hurdle to jump during their early career in Aenea. At those lower levels with limited HPs and Spells, I believe that they can have a difficult time. Yet in my anecdotal observations, with the wide range of options available to them later in their careers, I believe that the scales tip to their favor (when confronting later-stage challenges in Aenea) when measured against a straight melee character.

Lower end summons will die very easily. Summon creature 9 though craetes a 20th level elemental. I've dragged one along through mindflayers, mummylords, orc country, and it does very well unbuffed. BUff it up, it does even better.

As for arcane casters in general, I would agree in the long run, they're easier to play and can outstrip a melee character. Access and versatility of buffs and offensive spells makes them far more adaptable, and able to handle large mobs easier in the later levels, and are easier to levelup in the long run as well.

I have to disagree with the Arcane caster vs. melee character debate here.


I have both a 40th level arcane caster AND a 40th level pure melee character. I had an easier time levelling the melee character. I was just selective about what I fought.

Yes, casters are more versatile at higher levels. Melee characters have a hard time with some of the upper level challenges. They also wreak havoc on some of the upper level challenges, and have no need to expend resources to continually chew through them, and also virtually no downtime.

Aszhad can clear the beholder tunnels with amazing speed without expending consumables at all (besides maybe some war hulkpower on the elder). Crid take longer and had a greater chance of death if I make a mistake. Aszhad can barrel through the place, taking only a short break to get ready for the Elder. A large part of this has to do with Aszhad's spell resistance. It took him 30% more total XP to hit 40, and I still got there easier than with Crid, because the power gain, combine with his melee focus made it easier to grind through enemies that were vulnerable to melee.

The melee characters have it better on most things in Aenea... but it happens that there are a few "bosses" that are very difficult to melee, and casters have the edge there. Melee characters are easier to level if one simply doesnt engage the enemies that are resistant or very difficult to defeat in melee... or at least, don't try to level on those enemies. Caster's versatility makes it easier for them in that intsance, sure, but limited resources and less AI assistance still makes it harder to level a caster.

Derfel was pure melee for a while, until I reformatted the build (with Crideas' help) and he's definitely more versatile now, but there was a rough patch where I basically relied on Derik to do most of the damage in combat while I skirmished and controlled threats with Spring Attack and Whirlwhind, drawing fire to myself so he could get in the big hits that I couldn't. Now I'm just as threatening as he is, only with a bit more consistency (higher crit range).

Of course, it's interesting to note that I've tried several different types of character on Aenea, and Derfel is the only one to break level 10. The only other one who comes close is a level 7 paladin (yet another fighting type), which says something about either my playing style (I can't handle spellcasters?) or the ease of leveling one or the other.

I don't think beholders are quite a good testing ground for the example, as their auto dispel completely zaps out all spell buffs with no check or chance to avoid, which is not typical of any other enemy. Even if there were other enemies who cast multiple, high powered Mords would not be able to completely dispel all a caster's buffs as beholders do. That one point is a major handicap for a caster.

The spell resistance is another one. 45 SR vs 24 SR is a signifigant difference for avoiding the eye magics. Even 32 SR vs 24 SR is a noticable difference. And one also has to consider not every meleer's going to be a subrace with SR. Non subrace meleer's without access to SR items would have a far less easy time vs the beholder eye rays than a character with access to SR items.

If the caster had an unbuffed AC equal to the meleer's, that would even out the defensive end of the argument, and then it comes down to killing power. The meleer doesn't have to deal with weapon failure, but the caster has to deal with spell failure, making spell killing vs weapon killing a handicapped issue. If the meleer could not strike with his or her weapon while under spell failure, that would level the offensive end of the debate in regards to beholders. Killing with weapons only, yes, the meleer will eat through beholders faster, but on what other enemy is a caster not going to use buffs and limited use of offensive spells?

My one character, Angelica, is 99% meleer. She has wizard levels, but rarely uses them. Against beholders, she does. Darkness/ultravision allows her to negate the beholder eye beams. Aurora, using the same tactics, can decimate an entire spawn of beholders in just one or two offensive spells, while Angelica has to kill out the beholders one at a time, which is a slower process. On that level ground, Aurora does better. Without that, Angelica does better as while their AC's are roughly equal, Angelica can kill faster with weapons than the caster can due to higher AB and more APR.

But no other enemy handicaps casters to such a dire degree as beholders do, nor does subrace SR play such a crucial role in survivability.

Now vs Orc destroyers, mobs of orc solders/archers, dragons, nearly any other creature, the caster has the advantage. Yes, the caster will need to rest to restore spells, while the meleer could go on without resting for an entire leve's worth of XP or more even, but that is just one of the natural tradeoffs of the class. Get to kill multiple enemies with a single spell, but need to rest for it. If sleep were a required aspect of the game, this would not be a point in the meleer's favor (realism vs fun debate... it's not fun to *have* to rest every so often, but it's not quite realistic to have an insomniac war machine who goes for days on end without sleeping and stays 100% effective.) Another point to consider in the need to rest to renew spells is, while it costs GP, there are potions available for casters that effect the same benefits of resting without actually needed to rest. Now while it may be a GP cost to the character, so are healing potions for any character, and at higher levels, GP is not an issue anyhow at epic levels. Even my wolfblood with a negative appraise score can pull in 500K in a relatively short time. My meleer's spend more on healing potions than my casters do on renewal potions, even with the renewals costing far more per bottle.

The caster can go into battle with a DR of 20/+5, 50% concealment, enhanced AC over plate and shield armors, spells that give an effective 100% concealment bonus vs ranged weapons and 66% vs meleer weapons, haste, magic shields that return massive amounts of acid damage to the attacker when they're struck, and still have number of high powered spells to kill off multiple enemies in a single casting.

Sure. The caster can buff to the gills to take on an encounter that is very tough to handle for a meleer. They can do so *once* before needing to rest.

Azshad can rip through the Orc Destroyers much faster than Crid. Sure, he may take a hit here and there... but he is still more effective, and doesnt need to use a bunch of limited resources to do it.

The beholders may handicap a caster, but casters can still smack them around. its just very dependant on strategy and finesse. If a meleer doesnt have high SR, yes, they will have a hard time with beholders... unless they use magic items of some sort. Regardless, its is easier to kill beholders with melee than with spells. Great Cleave will down and entire spawn of 8 beholders very quickly. Vorpal weapons are death on a stick to them as well.

Casters are harder to play effectively. They are also more versatile.

A well equipped and prepared melee class is still easier to succeed with on 90% of enemies.

Depends on the buffs used, and when you use them. If you're going to layer everything on at one time, you may only get one buff up.

Using the spells selectively as needed though can lead to far longer hunts between rests. Running through orc country, Aurora doesn't need protective gale until I get into Tesh where the archers are far more numerous, and usually no need for premonition until the orc destroyers, who do manage to hit often enough to warrent the use. There's no need for the weapon buffs if I'm not planning on using her sword in melee. No need for true seeing unless I intend to be utilizing darkness in an attack, or am facing something that happens to go invisible. No need for shadowshield against orc soldiers or the average non-undead dragon. I would imagine for a wizard, it would be more of a hassle to juggle spells around each rest for the most optimum selection, but at least from the sorcerer standpoint, it's pretty dang easy.

And vorpal-keened weapons with a weapon master who has great cleave are nice... but still no where near as fast as a single cast of wail or hypothermia on that same 8 beholder spawn. Sometimes one or two will survive the initial spell, so a follow up of an greater missile storm might be needed... which still works faster than meleeing them. And given 18 casts of hypothermia, all the lesser attack spells, the my caster can completely clear out the tarnesha tunnels far quicker than my meleers, can clear out Tesh and Fort Morth far faster, vale graveyard... mummies in the searing sand ruins, the temple of teeth... all of them can be cleared out far faster with Aurora than they can be with Alex or Angelica.

I will have to completely disagree. A well equipped and tactics minded caster is easier to succeed with than any melee only character. Even one with basic stock equipment can get by very easily, as their power doesn't rely on items, it's in their spells. Items are nice, but not required by any means.

Yes, the caster needs to rest, the meleer doesn't. That's not a huge issue. it's a veritble non-issue past the first few levels where a caster has only 5 or 6 spells total to use. Potions of renewal completely remove the need for the scant 10 or 15 seconds required to rest and re-equip shield and weapon.

It's also far easier to play a caster who can easily teleport between prime hunting spots no problem. Clear out tarnesha tunnels and enclave, teleport to Ando's. Zap the golem, teleport to ice reach. Zap the dragon, teleport to the searing sands ruins, zap the elder. Teleport to the graveyard, zap vorshlag, do another tarnesha run, or hit greyskull. I'd say a few seconds of required rest is a very cheap price to pay for not only hitting a vast array of high XP enemies, but the ability to take on all of them in a relatively short amount of time. And there's a side benefit of at least 3 soul gems, a couple blood gems, and more than enough loot to buy the single potion of renewal that might be used in that whole run.

^^ what Manny said

casters become even more durable if you take the auto still feats like sevenar has done... he's only got an ac of 36 unbuffed but that's enough to stop 50% of the attacks against him. toss on an invis and a premonition and he's nigh un-hittable.

and it's not that hard to juggle buffs and such on a wizard, it takes no more than a few seconds if you're familiar with your spellbook. I *very* worthwhile sacrifice for the versatility you gain in knowing every spell in aenea.
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however to get back to the original point of the post, how do you guys think it would be best to scale up the encounter level to make it both challenging for high end toons and balanced for both melee and casting classes? obviously no area is going to be perfect and will favor one or the other a bit, but as it is the world of aenea is very easy to handle for any upper level class...

I am still thinking having spawns with a fairly good mix of casters/archers/meleers. There's very few caster enemies in aenea. Bandit mages, beholder mages, skeletal priests.... a few boss baddies toss out a spell or two.

And make the casters actually dangerous. The biggest problem with all of them is that they use stupid spells. Bandit mages will do alright in throwing out magic missiles and occulus' searing gazes, but those two spells are so easily countered. Beholder mages... never seen them cast anything worthwhile. The vampire elder will half the time spam me with ice storms, which can be a hassle at times, but the other half of the time he's throwing out weirds like they're going out of style, and they've -never- hit any of my characters.

Have the enemy casters toss out mords, dispells, a wider range of attack spells, maybe a few key defensive spells (stoneskin, imp invis... regular invis on an NPC AI is a minor annoyance to the player at best, a free attack of opportunity most other times).

And sneaksy NPCs.... rogues/shadowdancers who hide and go for the sneak attacks, assassin NPCs who have death attack.

TonyK's AI upgrade also does wonders for NPC intelligence in the SP campaigns. Not sure how it'd work out on Aenea, but anything that would make the enemies smarter and more dangerous would be much more fun

I generally agree with Manny on that there needs to be a mix of melee fighters/[archer/slinger]/casters in most spawns (the ideal balanced party in D&D... ). I think one other thing needs to change as well: Prefer quality over quantity.

As it stands now, all the encounters I have triggered have scaled up by dumping on MORE melee combatants. This tends to quickly overwhelm lower level characters while being fairly easy to dispatch by higher level characters with AoE spells or cleave feats. At higher character levels, fewer, higher level opponents need to spawn. This forces casters to cast more, more powerful spells to kill them and keeps a meleer with great cleave from wiping them all out after he kills the first.

In addition, the enemies need to spawn spread out a little more, or at least, "learn to move." One of the spawns that does come out with a decent mix of melee/archer/mage is the bandits, but the mages and archers spawn together in a big group and then tend to stay there in one big giant cluster just begging for an AoE spell or a melee-oriented PC to charge in and cleave them to oblivion.

And this quantity over quality approach doesn't scale well to parties either. The huge groups of bandits quickly falls to a group of 3 players of almost anything. (Just did it last night with a level 10 rouge, level 10 cleric/something else... I think..., and a level 12 druid. Hey, what do you know? A semi-ideal party adventuring in Aenea... )

I think we all realize that The Amethyst Dragon isn't going to be able to do this all in one day or anything, as if he updates an encounter in the palette and then tells it to update the module with it, it will probably take a good hour or even more... But I think he should probably start at Valorian's Vale (Did I spell that right? *hopes*) and work his way out from there so it becomes less likely that new players with lower level characters get slaughtered, get discouraged, and then never come back.

*bump*

Firecasters in the Alatha wizard school:

They sometimes throw out a Wail of the Banshee. This is great because it makes them a credible threat to moderate level parties. It is however, pretty much the only dangerous spell they use. It would be nice to see them use some fire related magicks like Delayed Blast Fireball and Silverblade's Searing Strike as well (that silverblade's ray attack can do a *nasty* amount of damage for its spell level, it just might be hard to hit the touch attack in some cases).


Bandits:

By the time PC graduates from bandit rogues to bandit mages and archers, its basically just a matter of having defenses against the mages 3 good spells and getting to melee on the archers to jam them up. Would be nice to replace a couple mages in those spawns with rogues so that there is still some melee threat, maybe even a sword wielding bandit lieutenant who has a few fighter levels.... the cheiftain is a bit rough when you first meet him, the lieutenant would need to be a bit more ... squishy.

This is a very interesting thread to me. I have found that my two mains Gray and Ragrigrin have drastically different experiences with encounters. In general, Ragrigrin a monk/WM is not challenged by much of anything at his level. Gray, a Wizard, has some serious difficulties if not prepared...but of course that is the tale of the mage isn't it.

Now aside from the Caster/Melle debate, I would like to say that over all the encounters would do well with a diversification. As any good DnD'er or NWNian will tell you, the key to survivability in a party is having a good mix of character types.
Everyone keeps mentioning the bandits as the example here, but i Think the goblins are in fact the best example of proper blend that I have encountered. The shamans are fair casters for their 3-5 levels and the other gobbys have a good mix of melle and ranged ability. It is also important to note that some monsters simply arent team players. You might encounter them in groups, but they arent smart enough or diverse enough to branch out.

While groups of mobs should be diversified, individual enemies should be specialized...just as a player character is. As the esteemed daveyeisley points out, firecasters should fit their name. Perhaps the inclusion of a good necro specialist would be effective against many PCs. Mind Flayers are often known as the greastest slavers around, but ours show a notorious lack of thralls to serve as fodder.

A complete overhaul of the spawn system is a bit much to ask so I would like to suggest that a poll be started as to which encounter group to discuss first, then start a good thread in the Suggestions forum to offer up ideas specifically for that encounter group. This thread is a great idea generator, but I cant imagine it is very useful for with all of the various other issues he has to deal with.

I would like to nominate the bandits. They are a popular topic, and they affect a wide range of levels.

I would also like to invite to move this post to a new thread if he sees fit.

Tackle the ecounters one by one... good idea. Would make fine-tuning encounters easier than looking at the whole bunch.

With bandits, I'd say they have a fair number of types. The problem with them though is that the bandit rogues make only a short appearance, and the bandit clerics seem more rare than anything, maybe they're at that one single level much like the lone beholder mage encounters in Tarnesha. Particularly in the later bandit levels, a more diverse group would be great. The current 'top spawn' for them is 1 bandit chief, mages and archers. I'd say tossing in less mages, more clerics, and a few more meleers would be good and deadly.